Powerful Taiwan Quake Fells Buildings

Relatives of missing residents from a 16-store apartment complex felled by a powerful earthquake inTaiwan that killed 13 people were praying for miracles Saturday as rescuers scoured the rubble for survivors.

The cluster of buildings in the historic southern city of Tainan were full of families who had gathered for Lunar New Year celebrations when it collapsed, with residents still trapped inside on Saturday night and the death toll rising.

Tainan bore the brunt of the 6.4 magnitude quake and the disaster zone centres around the residential complex containing almost 100 homes which were toppled.

Liang Chuan-shun, deputy fire bureau chief for Tainan, told AFP the search was now "a race against time" and would continue through the night.

"Some rooms in the building were rented to students who would not register with the census authorities - we're not sure how many others might still be left within," he said.

Agonizing wait Relatives huddled by the ruins late Saturday, hoping for news of their loved ones.

"I was woken up by the quake and called my brother's mobile - no-one answered and I feared something was wrong," said Huang Yu-liang who lives near the site and is waiting for news of his brother, sister-in-law and their two children.

"I rushed here and saw the collapsed building and I was in shock. Their building is at the bottom (of the wreckage). I am praying for miracles."

Avalanches, in which snow, ice, soil and rocks break loose and move rapidly down a mountainside, are a scary and and potentially lethal natural hazard.
Read on to learn about some of the spots on the planet where deadly avalanches have occurred.

World War I was deadly enough without avalanches. Nevertheless, a series of December 1916 slides, starting with one on Mount Marmolada that dropped 200,000 tons of ice and snow on a military barracks, were as deadly as many battles, killing thousands of troops from Italy and Austria-Hungary.

This is the site of what probably was the worst avalanche in history, a May 1970 event triggered by a 7.8 earthquake. Snow and ice came sliding down the mountain at 175 miles per hour speed, totally burying the town of Yungay in snow and ice and taking the lives of an estimated 20,000 people.